Audio-Lingual Method

Richards and Rodgers (2001) provide one of the most thorough descriptions of the

historical background of the Audio-lingual Method, from which the following information has

largely been drawn.

Audiolingualism came about as a result of a number of developments in linguistics,

psychology, and politics. In the 1940s, linguists at the University of Michigan and other

universities were engaged in developing materials for teaching English to foreign students

studying in the U.S. Their approach, based on structural linguistics, relied on a contrastive

analysis of the students' native language and the target language, which they believed would

identify potential problems in language learning. Lessons consisted of intensive oral drilling of

grammatical patterns and pronunciation. The approach became known variously as the Oral

Approach, the Aural-Oral Approach, or the Structural Approach.

At approximately the same time, the United States was drawn into World War II and

needed personnel who were fluent in foreign languages. Upon finding a lack of Americans with

sufficient language skills, in 1942 the U.S. government developed the Army Specialized Training

Program, an oral-based program based on intensive drilling and study. The success of this

program convinced a number of prominent linguists of the value of an intensive oral approach

to language learning. Most American schools and universities, however, continued to employ

the Grammar-Translation Method or the Reading Method well into the 1950s.

In 1957 Russia launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, causing the U.S.

government to become concerned about Americans' isolation from scientific advances in foreign

countries due to their lack of proficiency in foreign languages. The National Defense Education
Act of 1958 provided funds for developing foreign language teaching materials and training

teachers, and language teaching specialists set about developing new teaching methods. They

drew upon the earlier Structural Approach and the Army program, as well as on principles of

behaviorist psychology. The new approach, which Yale professor Nelson Brooks dubbed audio-

lingual (Brooks, 1964, p. 263), claimed to have transformed language teaching into a science.

The Audiolingual Method was widely adopted in the U.S. and Canada and served as the

principal approach to foreign language teaching in the 1960s. The method's decline in the late

1960s and early 1970s was brought about by two factors. First, linguist Noam Chomsky

questioned the theoretical basis for the method, particularly the assumption that external

conditioning could account for all language learning (Chomsky, 1959). Second, some language

teachers and students experienced frustration with the method's avoidance of grammar

explanations, its heavy emphasis on rote memorization and drilling, and its failure to produce

conversational ability in the foreign language (Hadley, 2001). These developments led to the

eventual abandonment of the method, although some of its practices, such as dialogue learning

and pattern drills, continue to be used in some foreign language programs.

Audiolingualism views language as a set of structures, including phonemes, morphemes,

and syntax, the patterns of which can be deduced by analyzing the language used by native

speakers. The audiolingual syllabus is organized around these linguistic structures, which are

represented in dialogues and pattern drills.

A second tenet of audiolingualism is that language is primarily an oral phenomenon,

inasmuch as all natural languages first developed orally, and children learn their first language

orally before learning its written form. Thus, the Audiolingual Method teaches listening and

speaking before reading and writing. Exposing beginning students' to the written language is
avoided in the belief that seeing the written word interferes with developing correct

pronunciation habits. Reading and writing are introduced later, and consist primarily of material

that was first learned orally.

The learning theory underlying the Audiolingual Method is behaviorism, a prominent

school of psychological thought in the first half of the twentieth century. Behaviorism posits that

all learning occurs as humans respond to external stimuli and their response is either rewarded

or punished, which serves to increase or decrease the behavior. Psychologist B. F. Skinner, in

his 1957 book Verbal Behavior, included language among the behaviors that are learned

through this type of conditioning. Brooks (1964) explained how behaviorist theory was to be

applied in the classroom, with teachers providing linguistic stimuli in the form of dialogues and

drills," reinforcing students" correct responses, and correcting their errors. Brooks summarized

the application of behaviorist theory to language learning as follows: "The single paramount

fact about language learning is that it concerns, not problem solving, but the formation and

performance of habits" (p. 49).

Because the formation of correct linguistic habits is paramount, great emphasis is placed

on proper pronunciation, intonation, and grammar usage. Students are discouraged from using

language to create their own meaning due to the potential for making errors, which may

potentially become ingrained habits.

A typical Audiolingual lesson begins with a dialogue, which is presented either from a

recording or verbally by the teacher, often accompanied by drawings to illustrate the meaning.

Lines from the dialogue are memorized one by one, with students repeating each line in chorus.

When a pair of lines is learned, the teacher asks half of the class to repeat the first line, and the
other half to respond by repeating the second line. The same procedure is repeated with rows

of students and then with individual students.

When the dialogue has been memorized, the teacher leads students in adapting it to

their own situation or interests by substituting words or phrases. Students repeat the dialogue

with the new substitutions.

Sentences containing key linguistic structures are then extracted from the dialogue to

form the basis for pattern drills of different types. The teacher reads a sentence and asks

students to repeat it in unison. The teacher subsequently leads the students in drills based on

the model sentence. Drills may include responding to questions, substituting new words or

grammatical structures, negating affirmative sentences, or making morphological manipulations

such as changing singular to plural, all according to the teacher's cues. These drills are first

practiced in chorus and then individually. Any grammatical or pronunciation errors are corrected

immediately by the teacher. Some grammatical explanation may be provided, but it is generally

kept to a minimum.

Follow-up activities may consist of reading, writing, or vocabulary activities, which are

based on the dialogue and sentences that have been practiced in class. If a language laboratory

is available, students may do further drill work on structures and pronunciation using recordings

of the dialogues and sentences.

Audio-lingualism is based on behaviorism, a theory that sees learners as passive

receivers of information whose behavior is shaped through positive or negative reinforcement. A

critic made to behaviorism came on the part of linguist Chomsky (1957), who claimed How can

children make mistakes if they simply repeat what they hear? In Chomskys view learners are
credited with using their cognitive abilities in a creative way to work out hypothesis about the

structure of the L2. His theory gave rise to cognitivism.

For behaviorists, learners were passive receivers of information whereas for cognitivists

they are active processors. While the aim of behaviorism was to repeat until the habits were

formed, cognitivists believed in problem-solving activities or tasks, which gave rise to

communicative methods. Under a communicative approach learners need activities for

meaningful learning so that they can use their innate and creative abilities to learn the rules of

the language.